


Zero Days Without Injury

by whiskeyandnight



Series: The Way the World Ends [3]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Blood, Blood and Injury, Light Angst, Medical Procedures, Minor Injuries, Minor Violence, Revised Version, sometimes major injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-27
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-03-16 14:06:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3491177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeyandnight/pseuds/whiskeyandnight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It isn't a normal day on the job unless the Courier is getting hurt in ridiculous ways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ain't That a Brick in the Head

**Author's Note:**

> Just a collection of drabbles involving the kind of shit that poor Arcade has to put up with.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello! If this fic seems familiar to you, that's because it's an older one of mine that I've just rewritten, and I hope you enjoy it! It'll be a bit heavy on medical procedure, injury/illness description, and blood and the like, so be warned. Updates on Wednesdays.

He doesn't like it. Not at all.

It's one thing to be caught off-guard by trouble while they're minding their own business as they walk along the cracked roads of the highways. It's a whole different thing to go straight-up _looking_ for trouble.

But there's a bounty to be collected, an insane Fiend to be dealt with, and most importantly, caps to be made. Arcade knows that those are all things that the Courier practically _lives_ for, and over the short time that he's spent travelling with her, he's grown to accept it.

It certainly doesn't mean that he has to _like_ it, however. And he takes full advantage of that liberty by telling the Courier so, over and over again, as he, Cass, Boone, and the Courier make their way to Cook-Cook's camp in the night.

 _You're going to get hurt_ , he tells her.

 _The Fiends are unpredictable_ , he warns.

 _You never know what they'll throw at you, and you'll pay for it_ , he insists.

As luck would have it, that last one ends up being a _little_ more literal than he expected it to.

As the bounty of the day, Cook-Cook is their primary target. Arcade isn't one for bounty work in the _slightest_ , but he's heard about Cook-Cook's _tendencies_ and since the Courier is set on collecting that bounty, Arcade has no choice but to tag along. The last thing he wants is for the Courier to get seriously maimed, and unfortunately for him, the dangerous nature of the work she does is just _filled_ with chances for injury.

Arcade considers it both a blessing and a curse that he's decided to join on this particular bounty when Cook-Cook whips out a fucking _flamethrower_.

Despite the threat of immediate incineration, Cook-Cook is surprisingly easy to take care of when the small group falls into coordination. Boone manages to take him out with a few well-placed shots – none of which aimed at the head, which the sniper grumbles under his breath about – as the other three defend him from the onslaught of Fiends, who seem to become even more crazed the moment they realize Cook-Cook is already dead.

After no small amount of running, hiding, and careful (and not-so-careful) shots, they're able to slowly pick off the rest of the enraged Fiends one by one. In the end, the whole encounter could have gone significantly worse, all things considered.

The Courier lowers her rifle and listens for any more sounds coming from the broken concrete structure, only to be met with the quiet of the night and the crickets that regain the courage to begin chirping again. She starts moving in towards the structure, sifting through the scattered bodied to find the one with a price on its head. Arcade knows the ugliness that's going to go down once she finds her mark; she performs the post-mortem decapitations with a surprising amount of ease, which makes Arcade… nervous, for reasons he really doesn't want to stop to dwell upon.

There's a sudden flash of movement from behind a concrete wall, followed by what can only be described as a shrill battle cry. Boone calls something out to the Courier, but the Fiend is quicker, hurling an object at the Courier before any of them can do anything about it.

It nails her _right_ in the head – with surprisingly good aim, Arcade thinks – with an ugly _thunk_ of a sound that he can hear even from his distant position, and the Courier promptly crumples to the dirt.

 

* * *

 

The Courier groans and makes one, two, three attempts to open her eyes. Third time's the charm, but she hisses when she's instantly blinded by a bright light that swarms her vision. She squeezes her eyes shut again, annoyed at the white spots that dance over the backs of her eyelids. A loud ringing vibrates high-pitched all around her, something that she attempts to silence by pressing against her ears with her hands, but her attempted movements are too heavy and sluggish and by the time her hands have reached her head, the ringing subsides. She lets out another groan when she feels her head start to throb with dull and painful waves that she's too familiar with.

"…okay?" She hears faint voices over the low ringing, along with boots crunching against dirt and gravel. Arcade or Boone, running closer, her mind supplies. She remembers that Cass had been standing with her. From behind the shroud of her eyelids she sees a shadow block the light that shines through. She decides to be brave – just one more time – and takes another try at opening her eyes. It still hurts, though not as much, and when her pupils _finally_ adjust to a decent level she's able to make out the slightly blurred image of Cass' face hovering over her, haloed by the flickering streetlight that her head is thankfully in the way of. The Courier still has to squint to see comfortably (and it's barely even that), but it's more bearable.

"Yeah, she's fine," Cass calls over her shoulder. She gives the Courier a crooked smile. "How ya doin', kiddo?"

"Nnh."

"Yep," Cass says with an unperturbed sigh, "that's about what I expected."

And then suddenly Arcade's face enters her field of vision, brow furrowed in heavy worry. The Courier does no more that blink at him.

"Can you talk?" he asks immediately. She feels like she _can_ , but really can't be bothered to summon the brainpower it would require to try.

So she settles for another short, "Nnh."

"I need _more_ than that."

The pulsing in her head amps up gradually, a steady and painful throb that she's sure is beating in time with her heart. She lets out a long, low groan and rubs the heels of her hands against her eyes.

"Wh'appen?" she grunts, and even she is a bit surprised at the way her words slur almost indistinguishably together.

"You were hit in the head with a brick," Arcade tells her bluntly.

"I guess one guy was just too busy getting doped up to notice that there was a fight going on and realized he was late to the party," Cass adds.

"Boone's checking the perimeter now," Arcade looks away, scanning the area around them that the Courier can't see or be bothered to see, "but I think we're in the clear. For real, this time."

"You know, now that I know it didn't crack your skull open and kill you, it was kinds funny to see," Cass adds, ignoring the sharp look that Arcade shoots her.

Arcade kneels down onto the ground, bringing his face closer and making it more clear for the Courier to see. He _really_ doesn't look very happy, she notes.

"Alright, I'm going to need you to try to follow my finger with your eyes," he instructs gently, in what the Courier has dubbed to be his serious-toned _doctor voice_. He holds up his index finger in front of her face and slowly begins to move it around her field of vision. Frowning, the Courier tries to watch it as it moves to the best of her ability, but sometimes it just feels like it's moving so _fast_ and it's just so _hard_ for her to keep up. She reaches a breaking point when all of the eye movement only serves to make her _sickeningly_ dizzy, and she simply gives a whine of defeat and closes her eyes.

Arcade makes a disgruntled noise and stands.

"Do you think you can stand on your own?"

She makes them wait for a moment until she can gather her focus and then finally gives it a try, moving and flexing her muscles until she's relatively confident of her control over them. Sitting up isn't the hard part, though, as she quickly realizes; as soon as she's up, another more intense wave of dizziness and _nausea_ sweeps over her, to the point where she considers flopping back to the safety that is laying on the ground. Instead, she attempts to push through it, holding her hand out in a silent request for help. Cass grips her by the arm.

The older woman tugs her up too strong and too _fast_ , and Arcade makes a series of noises that are probably words of objection, but the Courier can't quite make heads or tails of what words the sounds are supposed to be. It's all such a jumbled mess. The ringing returns, as loud as ever, and she finds that she _really_ can't see straight.

"Can you focus on me?" the Courier hears Arcade say, though not until a few moments of mental repetition and deciphering on her end. She turns to face where his voice is coming from, but even when she stops, the world just keeps spinning. She feels herself swaying; either that or the earth itself is shaking beneath her. When it feels like her saliva is fluctuating rapidly between being warm and cool, she knows that her nausea has spiked again. She tries to will the feeling away.

"S'mthins wrung w'th me," she manages to slur out in a garbled voice before collapsing onto her hands and knees at Arcade's feet. The jarring motion brings the nausea to a peak, and she can't hear much of anything around her anymore aside from the harsh and fast pounding of her heart in her ears.

"Well, I think that just about settles it," the doctor sighs. "You're probably concussed."

There's an awful retching noise from below him in response, one that all of them are _all-too_ familiar with in their own special ways, but Arcade isn't able to move in time from the splash zone. He shuts his eyes in reluctant acceptance as he feels something splatter against his boots. Cass snickers and tries to pass it off at coughing before she kneels down to hold the Courier's hair back from her face and give the younger woman soft sounds of reassurance.

"And you just threw up on my shoes." Arcade doesn't even want to _think_ about the mess that covers his feet. "Great."


	2. Boomer Hospitality

"What's the point in _everyone_ going? So they can blow _us all_ up at once? Hitting," the Courier pauses and whisper-counts them and their audience, " _five_ birds with one stone?"

"Oh, so you admit that you'll probably be blown up."

" _No_ , I just think that giving them a _wider target radius_ is _completely_ idiotic!"

"What's _really_ idiotic is going in there _alone_!" Arcade is nearly yelling at this point, and so is she. The more they argue over this, the less capable they are of holding their voices back. "It's too dangerous! Practically a death wish!"

"Oh, and you going in with me will help how?" she fires back. "If I get hurt, you'll – what? – just pull me aside and patch me up in the middle of the _barrage of explosives_?"

The others – Boone, Raul, Veronica, and the random man that had been standing around the road into Nellis – just watch in silence as the two continue to argue. On one hand, the situation is a tense one to be dealing with; the Courier is about to go on what they can all agree is essentially a suicide mission, and they're all worried for her survival.

On the other hand, it's just a little bit amusing to watch Arcade yell down at the small Courier, who proceeds to yell right back up to him with equal, if not greater, fire.

Arcade gives a long, drawn-out sigh of frustration and sweeps his fingers through his hair. "There has to be _something_ -," he starts, but as soon as the words leave his mouth, the Courier is waving her hands for him to stop.

"But there _isn't_ anything you can do! None of you!" she shouts, looking into the eyes of each of the people she's grown to call her friends, imploring them to just _understand_ why she has to do this. "I mean that with no offense, but really, endangering _all_ of our lives for this is far worse than endangering my one life." Arcade opens his mouth to refute that, ever stubborn in his ways, but the Courier muscles through. " _I'm_ going to go in there because _I'm_ the one who actually has to. House asked _me_ to do it, so this is my job and my job alone. You guys aren't the ones who _have_ to be here, and so you will stay here, _safe_ , and when I make it-"

" _If_ you make it-"

" _When_ ," she continues solidly, raising a finger to him and making him feel almost like a child being scolded, "I make it, I will see about getting you guys in _without the chance of fiery death_.

She looks Arcade straight in the eye, forces him to maintain eye contact where he otherwise would be trying to avoid it. At first, he does it out of defiance and posturing, standing at his full height, tall and imposing, in a final attempt at getting this apparently _insane_ woman to listen to him. But when he sees something flare in her eyes, a furious sort of determination that sparks across her irises, and he quickly loses some of his rigidity and bravado.

"Do you understand me?" she asks, so quiet compared to the heated words they'd just been exchanging, tone so soft and yet somehow lacking any slack to give way for further argument.

It's a phenomenon that he's only had the privilege of seeing a handful of times. The Courier is, at rest, a friendly, reasonable, and sometimes downright _silly_ woman. He's grown to really appreciate that about her; her disposition is one that makes life seem a little bit better, a little bit brighter, and a little more worth fighting for.

This, though. This is another side to her, one that's only come out recently, but is slowly making more appearances. This is a woman who takes no shit. This is a woman who is realizing that she holds more and more power with each passing day. This is a woman who knows what she wants and knows how to get it, and she gets things _done_. In short, _this_ is the Courier.

Few people, in Arcade's experience, have won against the Courier for lesser things.

He won't win this one.

It doesn't make him any less pissed about the whole situation, but he knows when to simply bite his tongue and let her to the _stupid shit_ that she does.

"Fine," he relents, not without some bitterness to his tone, after a silent stare-down. The Courier nods, says a few words to the group that he doesn't catch because his busy sinking into a pit of dread for her _life_ , and then she's gone, over the hill and past the glaring yellow warning signs and braving the ominously charred field that rests between them and Nellis.

Veronica comes up to stand next to Arcade and whistles.

"Damn. I wanna be like her when I grow up."

 _You mean dead?_ , he wants to say, nearly says, but he forces himself to bite his tongue yet again. Group morale, and all that jazz. Now isn't the time for dark humor.

Instead he says, with no real emotion, "Aren't you older than her?"

"Yeah. But still." She shrugs. "I mean, look at what she did to _you_."

He looks down at her with a frown. "And what, exactly, did she do to me?"

"Come on," she says, as though it were obvious. "You're, what, mid-thirties? You basically just got told to _'shut the fuck up and do what I say'_ by a 23-year-old with a baby face."

"It's true," Raul says as he and Boone drift over to join them. "She may be little, but _dios mio_ she can be intimidating. You won't catch me arguing with her. I'm too old and tired to compete with that."

Arcade rolls his eyes and is ready to defend himself when the ground shakes with the force of the first explosion going off. Over the hill can be heard a barrage of explosions that quickly follows the first, and then they're all too overcome by a tense and solemn silence to say any more.

Curiosity inevitably strikes each of them at some point, but none of them dare to peek over the shelter of the hill to see what's happening in the field. Watching the action means the possibility of watching the Courier die, and none of them are even remotely ready to see that. After all, where would they be if she dies?

They'd be back at the lives they lived before their individual chances meeting with her.

They'd be nowhere. None of them want that.

Arcade's stomach sinks at the thought and he regrets letting her go.

"Do you think she'll be okay?" Veronica asks after a few minutes of listening, in a voice so small and soft that Arcade almost misses it. She turns to the man that had been waiting to warn them away from the base, who had given the Courier 'tips' on making it through the Boomers' devastating defenses. "If she follows what you said, will she be okay?"

The man hesitates, and in reality they all know that no one has successfully made it before, even with his careful instructions.

The explosions slowly grow more frequent as they become more distant.

"In theory," he says tentatively, with a weak hand gesture that bears no confidence.

None of them say anything in response, simply waiting for the explosions to stop roaring and for the earth to cease its rumbling.

 

* * *

 

It takes ten minutes for the world to settle back into a deafening silence.

It takes twenty more for them to start getting more and more fidgety with every second that passes without the Courier's reappearance.

Another ten and Arcade is anxiously chewing his lip in worry as they murmur amongst themselves, coming up with any and all excuses that could possibly be the culprit for such a long wait. The man – George, as they'd eventually learned in Veronica's attempts to make casual conversation in such a stressful time – suggests that one of them go scout and see if they can find the Courier's body somewhere amongst the rubble. He receives four hard glares in response and promptly shuts his mouth.

And then, just before the waiting and uncertainty becomes downright _unbearable_ , "Savages!"

They all whip their heads around to look at the hill, where the call had come from. At the top stand five people in a delta formation; a woman armed with a grenade machinegun is fronting them, flanked by two men with grenade rifles, and at the ends are a man and a woman holding missile launchers.

"Talk about overkill," Veronica mumbles. Arcade elbows her in the side and shushes her.

"Mother Pearl has granted entrance into Nellis for you on behalf of _the_ _Courier_ ," the woman calls, not without sneering the woman's name. The group collectively sighs in relief at the acknowledgement that the Courier has, indeed, lived through the rain of explosives. "You will walk with us and keep a reasonable distance ahead of us as we escort you in. These privileges for savages such as yourselves are unprecedented, and should you make _any_ sudden threatening movements, you _will_ be killed without hesitation."

"Fair enough," Arcade answers after a long pause, ignoring the twin looks of surprise and uncertainty that Veronica and Raul give him. He gestures for them to begin walking forward with him.

"Hold!" And then they all freeze immediately, not two steps out from their original position, and cautiously watch the woman as she examines them with a deep frown. She then narrows her eyes. "There are five of you. We were told of only four."

"Oh!" George – who Arcade had genuinely already forgotten about – exclaims. He quickly backs away from the group and from the hill with a nervous laugh while holding up his hands defensively and demurely. "I'm, uh… I'm not with them. I'll just… be on my way?"

The woman glares at him, but says and does nothing, and George bolts away as fast as his old legs can carry him.

They're forced to walk in front of their escorts so they can be watched for any _suspicious movements_. It makes Arcade feel more than a little uneasy; he's never done it before, but he's certain that this is what it'd feel like to stand in front of a firing squad.

The road that they take goes straight down the center of the field, but it has long since been destroyed. Broken and charred structures litter the ground along the sides of the road, along with deep pits that have been carved into the earth after years of abuse at the hands of the Boomer's arsenal.

When they finally reach the chain-link gate at the end of the long, broken road, they're met with cautious glares and curious glances from the Boomers waiting on the inside. Murmurs can be heard all throughout those that have gathered to watch the outsiders come in to the base, speculative and suspicious.

"Where's the Courier?" Arcade tentatively asks the woman who has been the only one to talk to them, once they're within the fence border of Nellis. They're being led somewhere, silently, and they still haven't heard about or seen their friend yet. It isn't exactly the most comforting thing in world.

"We're taking you to her," the woman snaps. She says nothing more to them, refusing to speak with _savages_ , as the Boomers keep calling them in their hushed whispers.

"Why does this seem familiar?" Raul mumbles under his breath. It isn't the first time he's been marched into the unknown by people he wants nothing to do with.

"No kidding," Veronica says in quiet agreement. It isn't the first time she's seen a reclusive society react to negatively towards people from the outside.

They're finally stopped in front of a small, unmarked building. It looks like a barrack of some sort, made of metal sheets and with a simple wooden door. Arcade glances curiously at the door and turned back to the woman, prepared to ask-

"She's in there," the woman says impatiently when none of them move.

"Okay," Arcade says, dragging out the first syllable, before cautiously grabbing the handle and opening the door. Their escorts leave as soon as they're inside, grumbling to each other about the incompetence of outsiders.

The inside of the building is familiar in its basic function: it's obviously a medical facility. Arcade instantly understands.

"You made it!" the Courier calls from her bed in the corner, far too happily for the situation she seems to be in. She's sitting up in the bed, clad only in her underwear, and her wrapped foot is propped up with pillows. All of her clothes are folded up neatly on a nightstand next to the bed.

The only other conscious person in the room, who Arcade can only assume to be the doctor, turns to the group from an unresponsive patient he'd been tending to.

"Her left ankle was broken while she was worming her way in," he tells them without preamble, clearly unhappy with having to treat the outsider that managed to get past their defenses and infiltrate their base. "It's not too serious, but I've put her on some medication for pain and will have to put a splint on her in a moment. She won't be walking for at least the next week, and it will take about six weeks to fully heal without external aid. I'm short on stimpaks, but if _you_ have some," he looks Arcade over pointedly, "it will help her to recover _much_ faster."

Arcade knows that the doctor is probably lying and is just withholding any extra aid for the non-Boomer Courier, but he still nods in silent compliance and walks over to the Courier's bed. Her head lolls to the side so she can look at him, with eyes that are unnaturally glassy. She has the stupidest grin on her face.

"Hi!"

"Hi."

"You're here!"

"We sure are."

"That's great!" she exclaims with a laugh, clapping her hands together like an excited child. "I love it when you guys come to hang out with me!"

Veronica giggles at the Courier's drugged state.

"I don't consider being in a camp of trigger-happy xenophobes to be a good place to 'hang out', boss," Raul drawls amusedly, crossing his arms at the girl. The Boomer doctor makes a shocked, disgruntled noise behind them, but Raul offers no apology because the truth just hurts sometimes.

"I don't care where it is… as long as I'm with you guys… I'm happy." He words come out slower and more slurred together which each moment that passes, and she seems to already be drifting away from the conversation.

"That's just not true," Arcade remarks with a raised brow. She just scoffs and gives him a dismissive wave. Arcade turns to the Boomer doctor, who's been watching them intently from his corner, as though he's observing the interactions between animals. Which, it would seem, is exactly what they _are_ to these people. He fights the urge to roll his eyes and says, "I can do the splint for you."

The doctor gives him a skeptical frown, and Arcade is honestly surprised at the sheer lack of faith the other man has in outsiders. "Are you sure?"

Arcade can't help it and actually _does_ roll his eyes at that.

"Of course. It's a simple procedure. Plus," he adds, casting a knowing glance at the girl, "she can be… difficult, when it comes to being treated. It'd really just save you the trouble if I handled it."

"Alright," the doctor concedes after another obvious moment of examining Arcade, as if his physical appearance has _anything_ to do with his medical knowledge or skill.

He has to convince the Boomer doctor to let at least Veronica stay in the room, insisting that she is his informal assistant, but the stubborn man draws the line at Boone and – even more notably – Raul. Boone even tries to argue his own case, but to no avail. The doctor ends up making the two outside, much to their displeasure.

When Arcade pulls up a chair and gets to work on re-wrapping the bandages around the Courier's ankle (they'd been far too tight, her toes had begun to purple!), the Courier starts whining at the pain. Veronica give her a shot of Med-X on Arcade's order and gently shushes her, stroking her dark hair and encouraging her to _just go to sleep, you'll be fine_.

As the drug mixes with whatever they've already given to her, the Courier begins to slowly nod off. Arcade is guiding Veronica through getting the splint on when a limp hand rests over his. He looks up at the Courier curiously.

The stupid grin from earlier is back.

"I told you I'd make it," she mumbles proudly before her eyelids slide shut. Veronica smiles, and Arcade gives a small laugh and shakes his head knowingly.

"Yeah. You sure did."


	3. A Miscalculation

It is, without a single shred of doubt, on his _Top 5 Places to Never Go to Under Any Circumstances, Ever_ list, falling just below Cottonwood Cove and the Legion's Fort, and just above the hidden Jacobstown Enclave bunker and the highly-volatile lands of the Nellis Air Force Base.

And yet, somehow, the Courier has single-handedly managed to fuck that list straight to hell, to the point where the only one that remains on Arcade Gannon's Forbidden Zones list is the bunker. Of course, he assures himself constantly, there's _no way_ he'll ever even _think about_ telling her of its existence (let alone the reasons he knows about it), so he really doesn't have anything to worry about anymore, does he?

It's still with a great amount of pain that he mentally crosses Number Three off of the list: Camp Searchlight.

Highly radioactive, ghoul-ridden, and otherwise desolate Camp Searchlight.

Lovely.

Even lovelier still is the position that they find themselves in, far too quickly for any of their liking. Searchlight is, admittedly, just a _little_ more populated than they had expected it to be. Not even the roaming squad of NCR troops that patrols the outskirts of the camp – who'd given them plenty of warning as is – had any real idea as to how many ghouls are still in the camp.

As it turns out, a rough estimate would have been pretty useful information, a nice ballpark area for them to base their plan of attack on, to adequately prepare themselves. Had they known the number of inhabitants Searchlight still houses, they would have taken a much stealthier approach that would have been excellent for eliminating the population in a much more effective manner.

Effectiveness, it seems, just isn't for them.

Instead, they're now holed up in an old, decaying store, firing through the long-broken windows at what seems like an endless wave of snarling, charging, formerly-trooper ghouls. The ones that glow viciously green are the first priority, but for every one of those types that appear, there are almost always two or three regular ghouls that come along as well.

Arcade considers it a miracle that they've survived for as long as they have without getting swarmed in the little store.

"Boss," Raul calls. For targets that move with as much frenzy as ghouls do – his own _distant cousins_ , he thinks with bitter amusement – he has to keep his aim as steady as possible. Unfortunately, that means crouching down and straining muscles, which is proving to be _hell_ on his old knees. "I'm starting to think there's no end to this horde."

"Just keep firing," the Courier yells back between shots. She's focused on the twin sounds of her and Boone's respective hunting rifles firing. She hears Boone stop, for a moment, and then start up again; he's moved further back into the store, though she knows it isn't a retreat. The Courier, who is moderately better and more comfortable with short-range than Boone is, remains up front while Boone stays back to get better use out of his scope, and eventually they're firing in tandem once more.

"I was just thinking about taking a break, actually," Raul replies dryly over the gunfire, managing to shoot the knee off of a ghoul and sending it to the ground. Someone helps him out, and suddenly its head is gone and that's one less angry ghoul. He grunts and grumbles to himself when he has to shift to reload.

"Guys," Arcade shouts, over the _crack_ and _pop_ of bullets and the sickly roars of feral ghouls, "I'm not sure how much longer the Rad-X is going to last, but we _really_ need to get moving before it wears off."

He'd had them – _ordered_ them to, more like – take the pills before they'd even gotten close to Searchlight, as a very heavy precaution. As he hears the constant crackle and tick of the Courier's Geiger counter and once more assesses their unfortunate predicament, he's thankful for his foresight to bring more Rad-X than usual for this excursion.

"I know, it's just," the Courier lets out a frustrated growl when four more ghouls run out from the dense fog that covers the streets. "This is getting _ridiculous_!"

"Three more glowers, ten o' clock," Boone calls, taking advantage of the range of his scope to spot for the group. Sure enough, three spots of green glow slowly radiate more and more from the dense fog, followed shortly by a large group of regular ferals.

"Alright, _fuck_ this!" the Courier shouts in rage, grabbing a grenade from where they hang on her belt. She pauses and tries to shuffle her rifle around but decides against putting it down. She settles for quickly straightening the pin with her fingers before just ripping it out with her teeth and hurling it out the window. "Frag out!"

Despite the absolute _chaos_ going down around them, Arcade is ready to scold her for using her _teeth_ to pull the pin out – because honestly, that's more than just one flavor of _stupid_ – when the grenade hits the chest piece of one of the ghouls in front with a hard _thump._

And proceeds to bounce right back at them. They can only watch, helplessly and wordlessly, as it rolls far too close to their hideout.

"Awwww, _fuck_!" the Courier yells in angry disbelief.

"Cover your ears and get down!" Boone orders immediately. The three men all drop to the floor simultaneously; The Courier, however, stays standing.

In the midst of it all, she freezes, caught up in a sudden, unpleasant, poorly-timed dilemma: she can either drop down and join them to shield herself from the grenade blast – and risk the ghouls that draw ever near swarming them _in the store_ – or brave the blast in an attempt to prevent the small building from being overrun.

Her dilemma is in vain. She never gets a chance to reach her decision.

The grenade goes off, the explosion relatively loud at such close proximity, and sends debris flying at high velocities into the store. Beneath the adrenaline rush that she's riding, the Courier feels a few stinging cuts on various parts of her skin, from what she can only assume are from bits of whatever glass remained in the old windows. She isn't able to think about what she should do next as she's forcefully tugged down to the floor by someone.

In an odd, dream-like daze, she turns her head and is met with Arcade's enraged face next to her. He's yelling something at her, and she's just barely able to read his lips forming her name, but nothing else makes much sense to her. She realizes then that the explosion has caused a loud ringing in her ears that she can barely hear through.

At the very least, she can tell that the good doctor is _not_ happy.

Before she gets the chance to process anything else, Raul and Boone are up and firing again, defending them as they gain their bearings. The ringing slowly begins to fade away, but she isn't going to wait for it to completely go and picks up her rifle to join the two in fighting. Arcade stands and stares at her as she helps to pick off the last – finally, _finally_ – of the enraged ghouls. He doesn't even bother to pick up his plasma defender from where it had fallen on the floor and just _stares_ at her.

Surely he isn't _that_ mad at her? She'd been _frozen_ for shit's sake, out of shock,out of _fear_. She couldn't have helped it!

When the very last ghoul chokes and slumps lifelessly onto the heap of bodies, they simply wait. Boone peeks out from the store, just a little bit, listening for any more sounds coming from the desolate streets. After a minute, he gives them the all clear. The group takes a collective deep breath to calm their nerves and revels in the newfound peace and silence. Now they just have to work their way out of the camp, and begin building a new strategy for when their second attempt.

The Courier turns to her companions, not paying any mind to the way her body protests in the form of several sharp aches and pains, and gives the three men a small, sheepish smile.

"Well, _that_ was lucky, wasn't it?" she remarks, gesturing to the strewn pieces of ghoul that surround the circle of charred pavement when the blast had been. The grenade, it would seem, had single-handedly taken out almost the whole group that it had initially been intended for, despite the bounce-back. The ghouls must have run right into it.

"You think _that_ was lucky?" Arcade asks incredulously, and the way his voice rises ever-so-slightly does not bode well for her. He gives a bitter laugh and throws his arms up in disbelief. "Look at _you_!"

"What?" she questions defensively, holding her arms open to show him the lack of severe damage. "I'm fine! It's just a couple of scrapes."

"Oh yeah?" the doctor retorts, pointing an accusing finger at her, "That look like a _scrape_ to you?"

She frowns at him and follows his finger to look at her right thigh. Her eyes widen.

"Oh," she says neutrally.

"Oh? _Oh?_ That is _so unbelievably close_ to your femoral artery," he tells her, just on the cusp of being downright _infuriated_ , "and all you have to say is _oh_? What were you even _thinking_?"

In truth, he's not angry that she's been hurt, because he knows that it's inevitable. But he hates it when it happens, and even more so when it happens because _she gets careless_. Simply put, he's angry at the circumstances. He hopes that she understands that.

"Oh, boss," Raul breathes when he finally gets a good look.

There's a large shard of glass about the size of the Courier's hand (that they can _see,_ anyway) imbedded through her pant leg, the surrounding area of fabric having turned from a faded black to a deep, dark red. It's wedged deep into the meat of her thigh, from what she can tell; when she tries moving it – without the numbing assistance of the adrenaline from earlier – the pain that spears through the leg stings _horribly_. She gives a long, suppressed hiss and shifts her balance to her good leg. The change in pressure only causes more blood to gush out, staining the dirty glass a bright crimson, and she feels herself getting a little dizzy. She can't tell if it's from the blood loss of the _sight_ of the blood loss.

"Alright," she concedes tightly, working to regulate her breathing because she may or may not be on the verge of panicking at the sight, "maybe that's a little more than just a scratch."


	4. The Not-So-Good Doctor

The middle of a town so horribly irradiated that it sits under a cloud of green haze is _not_ an ideal place to extract the large shard of glass from the Courier's leg, much less for her to receive the proper disinfecting and stitches that she's going to need. They have no choice but to retreat, setting aside their previous plans for the time being in light of this new development.

As soon as they make it to the small NCR recon camp that sits just outside the boundary of Searchlight, Arcade gets to work on dealing with the injury to the best of his current ability.

The best of his ability, however, doesn't mean _shit_ when he hadn't anticipated the Courier getting such a deep wound. From _glass_ , of all things. He doesn't have as many supplies as he'd like to have, but he'll just have to make do right now.

Arcade has to ask the group of soldiers if they can have their small tent to themselves while he works, both for the sake of his nerves and the Courier's privacy. He's fairly certain that they'd be putting up much more of a fight about it if the Courier hadn't insisted, from her cradled position in Boone's arms, that Arcade and Raul pick up as many dog tags as they could off of the large pile of dead ghouls they'd left behind as they'd quickly made their way out of the camp.

The soldier leading the small platoon – Astor, as they'd learned – seems more than grateful when the tags are unceremoniously dumped into his hands. He lets the two to have the solitude they need during the procedure while Boone and Raul keep guard outside. A favor for a favor, Arcade supposes, and he's thankful for it.

He has Boone set the Courier down on a table he's cleared off, with both legs propped up along the length of the wooden surface. She sits herself up by resting her weight on her hands behind her and watches him set his bag on the table. He digs through it in search of the necessary supplies, disappointed with the lack of supplies but grateful that he has enough to do what he needs.

He hands her a syringe of Med-X. "You're going to want this," he tells her, and waits until she carefully self-administers the drug before he hands her a small rag. "And this."

"What's this for?" she asks, flopping it around in her hand. She reaches down with uncertainty to dab at the blood that still trickles steadily from her wounded thigh. Arcade's hand stops her before she can get blood on the rag. She looks up at him in silent question, and his expression shifts into something softer.

And just a tad bit guilty.

"It's for your _mouth_ ," he explains slowly, hoping that he won't have to say any more for her to understand. Her furrowing brow and second, even more confused glance at the rag in her hand tells him that no, she doesn't. He pauses in his search for the rest of the equipment and gently takes the rag from her. He holds it length-wise in front of her mouth.

"Open," he commands softly. The Courier's frown only deepens, but she obeys. He swiftly slides the rag between her teeth. She looks utterly taken aback, but her muffled protests go ignored. Nevertheless, she doesn't fight back.

"Bite down." Once more she obeys, but she clearly doesn't like that she doesn't understand the purpose. He releases the tails of the rag and lets them hang on either side of her face.

"You're probably going to want to grab those, at some point," he advises. When he pulls out a roll of gauze, a bottle of antiseptic, a bottle of water, a pair of slightly rusting scissors, and two, cleaner rags, the Courier's eyes go wide.

It seems that she finally understands.

She looks up at him fearfully, silently pleading with him. He shrugs, unable to think of any words that might provide some comfort. There probably aren't any he can give her that would make this situation any better.

"I'm sorry, but that thing needs to come out _now_."

In the logical part of her brain, she has to know that it's the inarguable truth, especially with the admiral amount of medical knowledge she possesses. But that doesn't stop her from whining pitifully around her mouthful of thick cloth. His heart goes out to her – it isn't like he's going to enjoy it, either – and he tries to express that feeling as best as he can. But he still has to shake his head at her.

That's when the Courier spits the rag out into her hands.

"Shouldn't we wait until the Med-X kicks in?" she asks, eyeing the doctor warily.

"The Med-X wasn't really for… _now_ ," he tells her slowly, as he examines the blades of the scissors. They're a little rusty, but they'll do. "It's really more for afterwards."

"Why can't we wait anyway?" She's getting desperate, hoping for some sort of chance that she won't have to feel the full pain of removal.

"Because," he carefully lifts one of the torn, blood-soaked edges of her pants that surrounds the incision and brings the scissors to it, "I'm not going to leave you with a shard of glass _imbedded in your leg_ for the twenty or so minutes that it will take for the Med-X to take effect."

"I really don't mind-"

"That, and it needs to be disinfected as soon as possible. Unfortunately, that happens to be _right now_." With that he cuts a line straight up from the top of the rip in the fabric before doing the same thing along the bottom, allowing the entire pant leg to fall open. He helps her to strip out of the untouched left leg of her pants, ensuring that she makes no tense or sudden movements that might make the glass dig deeper around into her muscle. Despite her predicament, the Courier makes a sound of dismay at the loss of her pants.

Uncovered, the wound looks far more angry and vicious.

Arcade takes a deep breath; he'd never had to do this much of the _dirty work_ back at the Mormon Fort. Suddenly, for the Courier, that seems to be all he finds himself doing.

Life is strange that way.

He uses one towel that he's dampened with water to clean off the blood – fresh and old – that surrounds the glass shard, while attempting to avoid touching the raised and reddened edges of her skin. The Courier only squirms a little at the sensation, torn between watching him curiously as he works and shutting her eyes tightly to pretend she is doing _anything_ else. She settles for closing her eyes, and it almost works to distract her until she hears him shift around and then-

A painful sting blossoms from her thigh and she yelps in pained surprise. When she looks up at him, almost looking _betrayed_ , Arcade gives her an apologetic look before continuing his work, using a rag damp with the antiseptic to dab at the wound. She winces and hisses slightly with every touch of the rag against the torn edges of the wound, but is otherwise cooperative.

And then he's using the other towel again, pressing slightly against the edges of the shard and her skin. Blood continues to trickle out, and the Courier wonders if they should be concerned with the blood loss, because it sure feels like she's losing a _lot_. The train of thought escapes her when Arcade presses harder, holding the towel tightly to apply enough pressure to make the bleeding subside enough for him to begin the extraction without getting blood all over her and the table. It stings and makes her thigh throb harder, and she has to work to keep her pained whimpers from bubbling out.

Arcade washes the towel with more water and wrings it out as much as he can. It's still stained a light pinkish-red, but he can't do anything about that, nor does he care to at the moment. He lays the towel over the shard, hands just barely gripping it. They both simultaneously suck in a sharp, deep breath and he gives the Courier one last apologetic glance, eyes flickering between her face and the rag still clutched in her hands.

"Now's about the time that you'll want to put that back in your mouth."

 

* * *

 

"Wow," Raul whistles.

"Right?" The Courier holds the shard of glass out for them to see, almost as though she's _proud_ of it. She doesn't bother cleaning it, keeping it as some sort of weird prize, a testimony to what had happened; a third of it had been lodged in, as shown by the red streaks that now cover the area. She turns it around in her grip, admiring it. "I'm surprised this didn't cause any real harm."

"Well, aside from the near-critical blood loss, the damage to your muscle tissue, and the current risk of infection, no, there's no real harm," Arcade says dryly. He finishes packing up the remaining supplies and zips up his bag. He turns to Boone and asks, "Who do you want to take the first shift?"

The Courier immediately tears her gaze from the shard and eyes the doctor with caution. "What are you talking about?"

"You should first," Boone says, ignoring the woman. "Along the highway, we'll need someone who's a good shot to watch out. Which means, not you."

Arcade snorts, but offers no argument. As much as he hates to admit it, there's no lie to that statement.

"Fair enough." He shifts the strap of his duffle bag to cross his chest and tightens it, keeping the bag securely pressed against his back. When he reaches for the Courier, she lightly slaps at his hands.

"What are you doing?" she asks, watching him suspiciously.

"I'm carrying you," he says slowly, as though she's missing the obvious.

"No you're not," she argues. "I can walk just fine."

"That's a lie, and you know it."

"No it's not. Watch me."

"I don't think so," he chides lightly, smoothly reaching out to grab her before she can leap off the table and painfully realize that no, she most certainly can _not_ walk on her own. He grips under her knees – while remaining mindful of the gauze-wrapped wound under her new pair of pants – and her back so that she's cradled and steadily lifts her up. One of the benefits of the Courier's small size is that she is _always_ relatively easy to carry.

Arcade gives her a smug smile. She sticks her tongue out at him.

"This is bullshit, and I want you to know that."

And she makes sure to do just that, all the way down the road until the large dinosaur that marks Novac comes into view, and Arcade eagerly passes the grumbling Courier to off to Boone.

Then she makes sure that they know about her childish displeasure a few more times after that. The three men roll their eyes at her countless times along the trip to the settlement, but let the woman continue her tirade for as long as she pleases.

"Anything that makes you feel better, boss," Raul drawls with a grin.

"What'd _really_ make me feel better would be if you _put me down and let me walk for my own damn self_ ," she says, but Arcade only shakes his head. At this point, she has to know that she really _can't_ be walking for herself. He figures she's just being stubborn and cranky.

"Anything but that," he amends.

Despite all of her complaining, she ends up dozing off before they reach Novac, a result from the blood-loss and stress of her injury.

"There's a doctor here," Boone quietly tells Arcade as they arrive into town. "She's usually wandering around outside."

"I'll have to go see her for the equipment I need," Arcade muses, combing his fingers back through his hair. They stop in front of the chain-link gates that surround the Dino Dee-lite motel. Boone turns to face the doctor, frowning slightly.

"Be careful with her," he advises. "She's… not the best."

"Rather ominous, but I'll keep that in mind," Arcade says with a laugh. When Boone doesn't laugh or smile back, he clears his throat awkwardly. "Right. Well. Could you two set up an area for me to do the stitching? Preferably a hard surface. Oh, and if she wakes up, don't let her walk or do anything to irritate the wound..."

"Yeah. We'll be in my old room. First floor, fifth room down."

"Got it. I'll be back in a few minutes, then."

 

* * *

 

"Stop moving," Arcade scolds, albeit half-heartedly. The Courier is laid out flat on her back on top of a long dining table that Boone and Raul had brought in from another room. After cleaning out the incision with the antiseptic he'd brought off of Straus, Arcade had begins working diligently on stitching up her leg, but the severity of the wound means more stitches are necessary.

And more stitches mean more complaining.

"It's not my fault!" the Courier snaps. "It feels so weird!"

The doctor rolls his eyes as he readjusts the small desk lamp that he has shining on her thigh wound.

"How much longer?" she whines impatiently.

"We're about three quarters of the way through," he mutters in response. She makes a few huffing noises of displeasure.

"Can't I at least be drunk for this? I probably wouldn't care about it, then." She turns her head to Raul, who is idly standing to her right, and gives him what she hopes are convincing puppy-dog eyes. "Please Raul, could you bring me something? Scotch, whiskey, vodka, _anything_."

" _No,_ " Arcade says, waving a finger at her in warning. "Don't be so dramatic."

The Courier gasps indignantly, and he has to hold down her leg to make sure she doesn't shift it too much. "I am _not_ being dramatic!"

"Dramatic is _exactly_ what you're being," he tells her, sending her into another bout of sulking.

Raul only laughs and gives her a shrug, though not without openly deciding to have some drinks for himself. The Courier's griping becomes more outraged as the ghoul loudly goes over his _endless_ alcoholic beverage options, taunting her for his own (and, quite frankly, both of the others') amusement. A pissy Courier, despite the near non-stop complaining, is an entertaining Courier, after all.

As the procedure goes on, though, she becomes noticeably quieter and less responsive. Arcade passes it off as her dozing again, something that is very likely to happen frequently while her body attempts to regain its strength and heal. Boone and Raul take the chance to go outside and get some fresh night air and share a smoke.

At some point, her thigh starts twitching slightly every now and then, and Arcade tells her to quit it or control it, and though she makes no sound, the movement eventually ceases. The episodes happen more frequently, however, to the point where Arcade pauses the stitching completely and raises his head to give her a frustrated glare.

"This is going to take a lot longer if you keep– Lilith?"

The Courier is very much awake, but she's staring at the ceiling, eyes glazed over in a way that he's certain is _not_ a side effect of what's happened to her. It's as bright of a red flag as red flags can be.

It's then he realizes that in his concentration on getting the stitches done, he's failed to notice that the steady rise and fall of her chest has become more rapid, far too fast for the given situation. He immediately stands and cups her face, hovering over her in an attempt to get her to focus on him.

"Lilith, can you hear me? Can you tell me what's wrong?"

"Burns," she rasps out, and her eyes move around aimlessly. "Hard to… move. Hard… to breathe."

"Alright, I need you to focus as much as you can on regulating your breathing," he instructs, trying his hardest not to panic and to gather his thoughts. "We need to prevent hyperventilation; can you do that for me?"

"Trying," is all she can make herself say. Her tongue feels heavy in her mouth.

Arcade scrambles to think of potential causes, tries to think of what could have happened between Searchlight and Novac that could have done this to her. Could it have been the radiation that she'd been in while the wound was fresh? No, such a reaction would have occurred later, and would have required a much higher dosage…

He quickly calls Boone and Raul back into the room and informs them as calmly as he can manage that the Courier is having what could be a severe reaction to _something_.

"To what?" Raul asks, watching the woman's eyes as they flicker about the room randomly.

"I don't know," Arcade says honestly, though not without a great deal of frustration. He pulls his glasses off and rubs at the bridge of his nose. He starts to think out loud. "I don't know, I'm trying to think… What could have gotten into her system to cause this? It has to have been recent, I'm sure it has something to do with this," he gestures at the unfinished stitching on her thigh, "but I can't think… I don't _know_."

Boone stares at the abandoned equipment that sits next to the Courier's leg on the table.

"What all did you get from Straus?" he asks suddenly. Arcade glances up at the sniper with a curious frown.

"The needle and thread for the stitches," he says slowly, and then his face falls completely at the realization that hits him. "And the antiseptic."

"I thought that was yours."

Arcade shakes his head and says, shakily, "I used the last of mine cleaning the wound initially back at Searchlight, I had to get more."

Boone picks up the small bottle and examines it. It's unmarked, or whatever writing or labeling that _had_ been on it at one point has been rubbed off over time. He narrows his eyes.

"Go ask Straus what was in this. Now."

 

* * *

 

The second time he finds the doctor, she's seated at the bar in the large dining tent for travelers just across the street from the motel. He rushes over to her, uncaring of how frenzied he might look to others; he _needs_ to know if Ada Straus' antiseptic is the cause of the Courier's horrible reaction, and what specifically would be the reason for it.

Her guards see him coming, and they immediately straighten up, alert and ready to confront the other, seemingly crazed doctor if they need to. Straus catches her guards' movements and turns away from the bar towards Arcade, eyes wide in trepidation.

"Can I help you?" she asks him cautiously. He holds the bottle out for her to see.

"This. What's in it?"

Straus gives a nervous laugh, pressing further back into the bar. "It's antiseptic."

"I _know_ ," Arcade hisses, suspicion rising as he can just _feel_ something wrong in the way she says it, "what it _is_. What I _want_ to know is what is _in it."_

"Just your typical ingredients," she assures him, giving a not-so-subtle _look_ to her guards. They move closer to Arcade, ever-so-slowly crowding him. "Just like any other antiseptic."

" _Bullshit_ ," Arcade seethes. He isn't stupid, and he'd be insulted by her audacity if he wasn't worried for the Courier's _life_. "Tell me what you put in this!"

"I mean," Straus stutters, glancing around at the few other patrons of the small bar, some of whom have turned towards them, "nothing _too_ bad, I promise-"

"What. Is. It." He has _no_ time for dancing around the truth, goddamnit.

" _Scorpion venom!_ " she hisses at him harshly, trying to be quiet. "Alright? It's scorpion venom! I was testing out potential ingredients that might produce stronger antiseptics, and this month's was scorpion venom."

Arcade openly gapes at her, completely at a loss for words.

"Why," he eventually says once his brain comes back online.

"I just _told_ you-"

"Are you _insane_?" he yells, and oh yes, they definitely have the attention of the others now. Straus jumps out of her seat to push him back, away from the onlookers. She hushes and hisses at him to _shut up_ , because she doesn't need the whole goddamn _world_ knowing.

"Listen, I need _some_ way to test out new methods, _someone_ has to try to find better ways-"

"Venom! It's… it's in the name! Venom." Arcade is beyond furious, not just on behalf of the presently suffering Courier, but because Straus has just revealed to him that the whole damn _town_ has been acting unwittingly as her guinea pigs. "It's. _Venomous_."

"They use it in antivenom!" she counters, desperate to regain some of her lost footing.

"Yeah," he says exasperatedly. "And that's _completely_ different!"

"I don't think-"

"You don't need to _think_ it! It's a fact!"

"Listen," she hisses angrily, though she's backing as far away from Arcade as she can, trying to get her now-hesitating guards to _do something_ , "at least I'm _trying!_ That's what doctors do, we find new ways to help people!"

"I can't even find the words to tell you everything that's _wrong_ about what you just said in the context of this situation," he says, after a moment of gaping.

He just stares at her, utterly dumbfounded, but she gives him no response. He honestly can't believe that she could _and would_ do this to a whole town of people – despite the fact that she _clearly_ doesn't know the true effects of what she's doing – and still have the _nerve_ to stand there and _defend herself_.

He shakes his head at her and drops the venom-laced antiseptic to the ground.

"How is everyone in this town not _dead_?" he asks, loud and incredulous, before turning around and running back to the motel as fast as he can. Luckily, he's certain that he actually _has_ antivenom in his duffle bag. He needs to be quick, though, if he wants to prevent the Courier's reaction from getting any more severe.

 _It had been applied directly to a large, deep wound,_ he thinks bitterly, quietly cursing that incompetent, insane doctor.

He needs to be _very_ quick.

 

* * *

 

The Courier opens her eyes, tired and dizzy. And then _very_ confused. She doesn't remember falling asleep.

She also doesn't remember being moved to the large bed. She feels bad when she notices Arcade sleeping on the couch and Boone and Raul using sleeping rolls on the floor. There's room in the bed for one more, at least.

When she yawns and tries to stretch she feels a dull throbbing pain emanating from her leg and instantly freezes. It's then that she remembers the deep cut on her thigh, from the glass at Searchlight. Upon examination, she sees that it's loosely covered in gauze. She lifts up the edge to see that the inflamed wound has all been stitched up nice and neat; the handiwork of Arcade, she knows, not just through the memories that slowly come back to her, but because she knows her doctor is neat in his work like that.

She frowns when she tries to think back on the night before; she remembers laying on the table that she notices is no longer in the small room, she remembers complaining heavily about the _gross_ feeling that the stitches caused, she remembers a slight burn slowly radiating from her wound, but…

She can't remember what happened after that. She doesn't know why.

Maybe Raul had eventually appeased her and had gotten her the drinks she wanted? But she doesn't feel hungover, so it couldn't have been that, either…

"Morning." The Courier jumps at the sound of Arcade's tired voice, having gotten lost in her mission to recall the events of the night before.

"Hi," she says, rubbing the sleepiness from her eyes. "What happened last night?"

He cocks his head and gives her a strange look. "You don't remember?"

She frowns further and bites her lip. "No."

Arcade hums, stretching out along the length of the couch. He's almost comically too big for it, she absently observes. He should probably be the one in the bed.

"It's probably for the better," he mumbles as he put his hands behind his head and closes his eyes again. He looks tired. Surely the stitches didn't take _that_ long?

"Why?" the Courier asks, with equal parts curiosity and apprehension. She hopes she didn't do anything embarrassing. Although, knowing her, some sort of embarrassment was probably exactly what happened.

"Let's just say," he grimaces slightly, "that when we get back to Vegas, I'm requesting that we get a Followers doctor stationed out here. Immediately."


	5. Tick-Tick-Tickety

"That was horrible," Arcade announces with a groan, "and I never want to do it again,"

He tilts his head back and pours water into his mouth, swishing it around furiously before spitting it back out into the dirt. The acidic taste of vomit is fading, but not nearly as fast as he wishes it would. He splashes some of the water onto a rag and uses it to roughly scrub at his face. Beside him, Boone is hunched over and hurling onto the ground. The sound only makes Arcade even queasier.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Raul quips, smugly watching the two as they suffer, " _I_ feel fine. Invigorated, almost."

"Yeah, laugh it up," Boone wetly rasps, shooting a glare up at the ghoul. He's disoriented, his stomach is still churning unpleasantly, and as he tries to get a grip on the queasiness, he feels the beginnings of a splitting headache coming on. He's in no mood for the old man's dry humor.

After a second attempt at investigating the ruins of Camp Searchlight, they've found themselves back at the small recon camp once more, desperately trying to regain their bearings after having _bolted_ from the heavily irradiated fire station. The scavengers that they'd met in the underground bunker of a collapsed building had quickly turned on them as soon as they'd all made it into the old fire station, and had tried – and failed – to kill them all in an effort to claim the loot for themselves.

All in all, Arcade considers them lucky to have survived the scavengers. He's not so sure about how they'll fare against the radiation, though.

Judging by how wildly the Courier's Geiger counter had been ticking throughout the day, Arcade had known from the moment he started to feel the first inklings of nausea that they would soon be experiencing the first stages of radiation poisoning.

_Soon_ has turned into _now,_ and unfortunately, this is something he absolutely can _not_ take care of on the road.

As soon as they managed to get outside of the sickly cloud that hovers ominously the town, he and Boone had promptly ripped off the hoods of their radiation suits and finally fell victim to the nausea, throwing up the entire contents of their respective stomachs until their throats burned.

The recuperation period is both a blessing and a curse; it allows them to catch their breath and calm down and get rid of the damn _smell_ , but they know that it will only rise again, worse than before, until they receive proper anti-radiation treatment.

"You guys want some steak?" the Courier asks, around a mouthful of meat from where she sits on top of an old wooden picnic table. Arcade looks up at her from where he's hunched over, hands on his knees in an attempt to control his breathing, and sees her feet dangling and swinging like those of a content child. She holds out the aforementioned steak in her hands – no utensils, she's just taking straight bites out of the whole thing – as an offering to the heaving men in hopes that it might lessen their suffering. She swallows and adds, "It's good. From the McBrides, y'know, after I helped with their livestock problem. Might help get rid of that vomit taste."

"No thanks," Arcade answers slowly, as he watches her happily tear another piece off without a care in the world, "but may I ask how you're feeling right now?"

She chews thoughtfully, seriously considering his question. Eventually, she shrugs and makes a small hand gesture.

"So-so. Could be better, of course, but I'm not really complaining."

Arcade slowly straightens and walks to her, attempting to control the slight wobble in his step, as she rips another chunk of meat off with sharp teeth.

"I don't know how to feel about that," he murmurs. He glances at Boone, who is now gargling water as he had been before, and feels his own stomach start to churn again. He decides that the Courier is far too _content_ right now given the circumstances.

She lets him take her left arm and examine her Pip-Boy, though not without watching his hand on the buttons and dial like a hawk. Everyone has something to hide, Arcade supposes, and the Courier is certainly no exception. She's always been reluctant to let others look intensively at her Pip-Boy. He often finds himself wondering what she keeps on the simple wrist-device that could be so hush-hush – until he remembers that he, of all people, has no business going through others' secrets.

But he digresses.

Arcade clicks the dial down one and the display changes with a flicker of static, going from her basic vitals screen to her radiation readings.

And what he sees does not compute.

"What."

The Courier swallows her mouthful and leans towards her captured arm, frowning curiously at the screen. "What, what?"

"I think," he starts slowly, tongue darting out to wet his lips as he collects his thoughts, "I think there's something wrong with your Pip-Boy." Or at least, he _seriously hopes_ that something is wrong with her Pip-Boy.

"What?" she repeats in disbelief. She pulls her arm back from his grip to fiddle with the device. "No way, I just tuned it up like a week ago. It's fine."

"Okay," he concedes neutrally with a small nod, "then there's something wrong with _you_."

"What the hell is _that_ supposed to mean?"

"No, I mean," Arcade exclaims, breaking his mask of neutrality. He grabs the arm back and moves aside to show Boone and Raul, as if to make sure that he isn't just seeing things. "These radiation readings are _through the roof._ "

"Yeah, that's definitely not good, boss," Raul comments after a moment of silence. "Believe me, I would know."

"This has _got_ to be worse than what Boone and I have," Arcade murmurs, but he's thinking out loud more than anything. He gives the Courier an imploring look and asks, "How are you not _incredibly_ sick right now?"

The shrug she gives him is so incredibly nonchalant that he almost wants to shake some sense into her; radiation poisoning is _no_ trivial matter, and he _knows_ she knows that.

"I was born and raised in a pretty irradiated part of the country," she tells them offhandedly, turning her attention back to the steak in her free hand. "That and I had a… well, let's just call it a _mishap_ , involving radiation a few years back. I guess all of that together makes my resistance better than others'? I dunno."

Her tone tells them that she's already attempting to shrug their concern off of something where concern is a completely valid response. It hasn't escaped his notice that she's become more and more prone to doing that.

At first, it had been okay; it was understandable for her to not want them to worry over her when they were in the middle of a mission. But her resistance kept growing as the months went on, and she started getting more and more difficult when attention was brought to her injuries and issues, brushing them off as minute. The bigger the injury, the more resistance she gives them; the only reason Arcade is able to give her treatment during those times is because more often than not, she's too weak to fight him.

But in all honesty, it's getting a little ridiculous.

"That doesn't mean you can just _ignore_ this," Arcade scolds, rubbing tiredly at his face. His sickness is coming back, the nausea slowly creeping up on him again and forcing him to repress squirming uncomfortably. A sideward glance tells him that the case is the same for Boone, who's bent over and bracing his hands on his thighs to regain his breath. If they want to avoid the later, more _unpleasant_ stages of poisoning, they'll have to seek out medical attention soon. "Radiation poisoning can have dangerous long-term effects, you need to be treated."

"And yet here I am. Strange how the world works."

Arcade lets out a frustrated noise and throws his arms up in the air, appealing to some higher power to _save him_ from the stubbornness of the Courier.

"You can't keep doing this every time you have a _serious medical issue_ , Lilith-"

"But I can," the Courier argues, "because it's not _that_ serious."

"You would _not_ be saying the same thing if you were diagnosing someone else, and you _know it_ ," he retorts, raising his voice and pointing an accusing finger at her.

"That's because _I'm_ fine," she insists, gesticulating wildly at herself in example, "Really, I am!"

"That's what I thought, too," Raul tells her. "And then my skin started falling off."

The Courier turns to the ghoul, stunned, before babbling out a load of jumbled words that are simultaneous attempts at both an apology and an excuse. "Oh, Raul, I'm not – I mean, I didn't mean…"

He moves forward, taking advantage of her floundering, and rests his hands on her shoulders, forcing her meet his solemn gaze. She knows that he isn't a very physical person, and the action causes her to immediately snap her mouth shut and pay attention.

"Listen," Raul starts slowly, and though his voice was worn and gravelly it still manages to have a certain softness to it, "I haven't been with you as long as they have, but it's been long enough for me to notice that you have problems when it comes to doctors and getting treatments. I don't know what might be the cause of that, but I do know that you're a magnet for danger. You end up getting hurt so often that I'm pretty sure the universe has it out for you or something."

As he talks, he sees her face gradually fall, all the fight that had been in her moments ago melting away as her eyes grow more and more distant.

"I don't think you're wrong," the Courier interrupts in an unusually small voice.

Suddenly he sees the ghost of despair in her eyes, just barely there, and though he certainly doesn't expect it, he knows that he has hit a weak spot in her carefully constructed armor. He immediately understands the kind of pain that she is undoubtedly feeling, and the flood of sympathy that overcomes him makes him soften even more.

"You've got more fight in you than most armies do," he admits honestly, and she hangs her head down, "which is why I don't understand your resignation when it comes to your injuries. I feel like you wouldn't let the universe kick you out until you were good and ready, yet you always avoid getting the help that you need to keep going."

"Any time that I willingly accept death, whenever I think I'm ready," she whispers, a hushed confession, "someone brings me back. It's like… it's like having the rug pulled out from under me, like some sick _game_." She looks up at him again, eyes shining with the threat of tears, and they just look so _tired_ and _heartbroken_. "Sometimes I just… I just want to be left _alone_. Left to my own devices. No more yo-yoing. And I guess… I guess that _feeling_ hasn't gone away. Quite yet. I thought it did, but it didn't, and I'm still trying to figure myself out."

Raul wonders if this is who the real Courier is. He doesn't have any doubt that she wears some form of a mask in front of others, as everyone will inevitably do, but he has always been curious about what could be lurking under hers. This isn't what he'd expected to find, and he's afraid that this might just be the tip of the iceberg.

"You guys aren't the first ones to catch me," she continues, "and you probably won't be the last. I just – I have trouble. Dealing with it. I have for a while now, and I'm still not used to it, and I'm just so _tired_ sometimes."

"It's hard, _mija_ , I know," the old ghoul consoles. He isn't the best with people anymore, but he will try, for her. "But you can't keep fighting him," he nodded to Arcade, "and the doctors like you do. I don't know what happened to you before, but I know that right now, these two and the others back in Vegas – well, they're just trying to look after you.

"And between you and me? They want to protect you because you're the most that they've got, at this point. You give them some purpose." And then he drops his voice and, with all the softness and sincerity his old voice can muster, adds, "Myself included."

The Courier thinks about the small group of people she's grown to call her friends, and everything that they'd each lost and struggled with before they'd entered her life. She thinks of how willing they'd been to run off with her into the great unknown, a testament in itself of how few roots they hold in the places that they'd been and how much they deemed her to be trustworthy. She glances to Arcade and Boone, who have been watching her closely, as they've never seen this side of her so exposed. They each nod solemnly despite their ailments and honest confusion, with Arcade giving her a small, sad smile.

She looks back to Raul. The ghoul looks just a little uncomfortable, but his efforts don't go unappreciated.

"Thank you," she whispers, reaching up shakily to grasp at one of the hands that rest on her shoulders. She squeezes it tightly in a show of gratitude and bites her lower lip in an effort to regain some control over herself. "Thank you for… understanding. And for caring. I'll… try, not to be so difficult. It'll be hard. This is something that I've dealt with for a while now, and I know that _I_ am my own problem, and I _have_ to work through it. It won't go away like… like magic, but… I'll try."

Raul just gives her a reassuring smile and a satisfied nod and holds her gaze for a long moment, before stepping away without another word. Arcade moves forward towards the Courier and clears his throat to get her attention.

He isn't particularly surprised when the woman reaches out for him; over the months that he's been in the Courier's company, she's grown accustomed to coming to him for physical comfort, and he's subsequently grown accustomed to allowing it. Arcade lets her wrap her arms around his torso and does the same in return, giving her what he hopes is a warm, comforting squeeze.

When she pulls away, she smiles slightly and offers him the steak in her hand. Her appetite is more or less completely lost.

He returns her smile, but shakes his head.

"We're," he gestures between himself and Boone, "not like you; we don't have superhuman radiation resistance. We feel _terrible_."

The Courier laughs and reluctantly takes one last bite, though the steak has turned to bland mush in her mouth. She wipes her eyes, gives one last sniffle, and hops off of the table.

"Guess we should go, then."

She manages to get one of the NCR troopers to take what remains of the slab of meat, promising that there's nothing wrong with it or her, since she's already eaten half of it. At the threat of throwing away a perfectly good meal, a hungry soldier steps forward and takes it, though not without some trace amounts of caution that Arcade really can't blame him for. The Courier then spins on her heel and decidedly marches away.

"It's seriously not natural for a human to be as irradiated as you are," Raul comments, following after her as they start on their trek away from the terrible, terrible town. He gives Arcade a knowing sideways glance. "You're going to need the strongest treatment there is, I think."

"We'll have to go to the clinic," Arcade agrees with a hum, giving the Courier a soft pat on the back. He knows what's about to come and sure enough, her head immediately snaps towards him as she gives him an offended look.

"I _just_ agreed to work on this and you're already sending me back to the clinic? _Again?_ " the Courier whines. "Last time I went there, you and Cass almost killed each other."

Raul raises a brow at the doctor, who coughs awkwardly into his hand.

"We don't, ah," he stutters, "We don't need to talk about that."

"Oh, I think we do," Raul drawls, mouth stretching into a smirk.

The Courier happily launches into the story despite Arcade's weak protests, and somehow life manages to go on as it always had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Want to know what they're talking about? Read _Cabin Fever_!


	6. Walking and Talking

The Courier's small ensemble – made up of only three today – isn't in a hurry for once. They don't have to be somewhere _as soon as physically possible_ , they aren't trying _desperately_ to flee from raiders or cazadores or whatever the _hell_ else the Mojave could possibly throw at them, they aren't rushing to save someone's _life_.

No, every once in a blue moon, they get to enjoy a walking trip in peace; something that, with the local tension rising as the war seems to draw closer and closer with each passing day, is becoming an even rarer luxury than usual.

For once, they have no time constraints.

They aren't going very far, either, which they are all-too grateful for. So much of their time is spent walking and wandering (and running, fearfully) around the Mojave that a short, harmless water and food run to the Grub n' Gulp is like a breath of fresh air. It's like a small vacation from the lights and sounds and _surprising_ amount of worries of the Strip, and while it doesn't mean much to Boone and Arcade, they know that the Courier needs some down time. The war is not easy on _anyone_ involved, but it's especially hard for the young woman, who has spent the better part of the past few weeks working and negotiating and smoothing out problem areas not just within the borders of Vegas, but as far out into the Mojave itself as she can reach.

The stress is wearing her down, slowly but surely. None of them have missed it, and they all whisper their worry to each other when she isn't around to hear it, because there is something _changing_ in the Courier that they think bodes well for _no one_. But, when the time comes that she's back with them, they say nothing, do nothing, because she is more unapproachable about it now more than she ever has been. They don't want to bring that stress into their casual companionship with her, so they simply act as they always have with her, by offering laughs and lightheartedness and an exuberant amount of support.

Still, they worry for the future – theirs and hers alike, because at this point, they're intertwined.

But that's not the point of this little trip. This trip is about freedom from the pressing issues that have consumed the Courier's everyday life. It's harmless, and that is something she is _more than_ glad to do, because it's something that is so easy and straightforward compared to the flurry of absolute _shit_ she's been putting up with. It's almost like paradise after the time she'd recently spent in the hellish dust-storms of the Divide, she jokes.

Arcade didn't even bother to bring along his duffle bag of medical supplies – as he normally would, with how accident and injury-prone the Courier is, now more than ever – because their destination is just close enough to the Strip and just far enough from Fiend territory that the NCR is always dutifully policing the area. What little dangers that could _possibly_ show up – like the occasional crazed mole rat, angry radscorpion, or doped-up, wayward Fiend – would be taken care of quickly and without much of a struggle on their part.

In short, there isn't much for the doctor to worry about, or at least not enough for him to feel that it's necessary to bring all of his gear.

He also figures that, should something happen along the way( _unlikely,_ he thinks for the umpteenth time), it'd undoubtedly be small enough that it could be handled by simply buying the needed supplies off of the merchants and traders that are always set up nearby.

It's about as much of an easygoing, relaxing day as they'll ever get when outside of the great, metal, protective walls of Vegas.

Arcade listens back as the Courier talks animatedly about anything and everything she can think of. It's just him and Boone accompanying her today, which basically means that it's the three least likely people to talk; Arcade had decided early on in their acquaintanceship, though, that the young woman is by far the most talkative of the three of them. He's glad to hear her chattering on, though. Sometimes, lately, she's taken to being mute for days, sometimes weeks on end, and while he knows she can often get lost inside of her own head, he knows her silence is different now compared to how it used to be.

But his worries are for another time. At the moment, she's reflecting on their recent visit (as curious tourists, for once) to the REPCONN Headquarters.

"-and I've seen, like, diagrams and books about it, but that room was _by far_ the coolest thing I've seen so far on the solar system. It really felt like you were just floating around in space if you didn't think about it, and it was a little freaky, y'know, but still an amazing display. I once saw something _kind of_ similar to that, not really, but it had a projector and holograms and stuff. I think it was called a planetarium? The only problem was that it was broken when I found it, and I _really_ wasn't in the position to try to fix it, so I didn't get to see mu – _oh, fuck_!"

There's a catching noise behind Arcade, along with a crunch of dirt and small rocks, and then a final telling _thump_ of solid impact as what he can only assume is the Courier's entire body hitting the dirt. He halts immediately, sucks in breath, and turns around to assess the damage.

The Courier is carefully pushing herself up from the ground, where she'd evidently fallen to her hands and knees. One hand is on a sharp rock that she must have used to catch herself, and the other swatting at Boone, who attempts to help her up.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," she assures the two, grunting as she gets herself back on two feet. Her face is just a _little_ more flushed than usual. She clears her throat and flashes them a wide, embarrassed grin. "That rock, it just – it _jumped out_ at me."

"Yeah," both men say knowingly, wholly unconvinced. For all of the finesse the Courier has during a fight, she is apparently _terrible_ at simple day-to-day activities like _walking_. She just doesn't pay attention, as Arcade points out time and time again, and while literally _everyone else_ agrees, the Courier simply smiles and turns her nose to them in faux arrogance almost every time they call her out on it.

"Great, now I have dirt all over me," the woman grumbles with a small pout. She sighs and absently begins wiping herself down while moving to continue onward, unfazed.

"Anyway, like I was saying –"

"Hold on," Arcade calls with a heavy sigh, grabbing her by the arm. She stops, turns, and gives him a questioning look, but he's busy examining her clothes with a critical eye. They're now covered in streaks of deep red where she'd just wiped her hands on them. He closes his eyes tight and prepares himself to not be _too_ pissed as he gently takes the hand that had landed on the rock when she fell. He turns it over in his grip and looks down to assess the damage.

Despite his expectations, he still can't control the loud groan that slips out.

The Courier's eyes widen and she gives a small, " _Oh_."

There's a deep gash running along the width of her palm, which is now steadily gushing blood. In fact, her whole hand is already _covered_ in it, glistening and slippery and _coppery_ with the rich red of it.

When shifts his gaze back up to her face with the blankest of stares, she gives him a sheepish grin and shrugs, but doesn't bother to say anything to defend herself or her actions. She knows, by now, what's about to come next.

Of all the things she could _possibly_ do to get herself hurt. Out of every single other option in the Mojave…

She _tripped_.

"Are you _fucking_ kidding me?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I might end up coming up with more ideas for this, but for now it's done!


End file.
